I tried making sourdough do trite first time, not really in to cooking or baking but when I saw the health benefits I had to try it. I think I put too much water and not enough flour throughout the process, but the starter was definitely suuuuper alive. Anyway, here’s the picture. It was super dense, but also su[er yummy, so I only got to take a picture after eating more than half of it. You’ll see how dense it is, and how unlike a Swiss cheese it is. Super tasty with elderflower jam though (self made).
I have 10X the starter left over, don’t worry, I’ll make some great sourdough before the semester starts again!
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Hashigishi - Stilgar.
“What labels me negates me” - Sören Kiergaard
Curiosity and a willingness to change, those are the only keys needed
Anti-lobbyist until my last breath
Liberty is natural
Nathan Klark wrote:I tried making sourdough do trite first time, not really in to cooking or baking but when I saw the health benefits I had to try it. I think I put too much water and not enough flour throughout the process, but the starter was definitely suuuuper alive. Anyway, here’s the picture. It was super dense, but also su[er yummy, so I only got to take a picture after eating more than half of it. You’ll see how dense it is, and how unlike a Swiss cheese it is. Super tasty with elderflower jam though (self made).
I have 10X the starter left over, don’t worry, I’ll make some great sourdough before the semester starts again!
You'll get it how you want it. Looks like maybe you started out all whole wheat. Not the easiest place to start but go for the gold!
I'm like that too. Make sure to try different flours. Preferably any local ones you can.
It's always tasty no matter the results. That and how long it lasts are my favorite parts for sure.
Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner
hey, if it was warm and tasted good you still come out ahead.
explore more, check out resources, and don't sweat it! as long as you're having fun and it's still edible, you're on the right track.
and check out some ideas for what to do with your sourdough discard while you're keeping the beast fed! https://permies.com/t/53607/Creative-sourdough-stuff-bread
I have always been told that folks get better results with rye.
As Christopher suggests this because then everyone expects it to be dense.
Maybe that is the reason.
Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Starters improve over time, so don’t be dismayed if your starter doesn’t make great bread to begin with. The best breads will come when you’ve been feeding your starter every day for 2+ weeks.
Have you tried sourdough pancakes? If you do a search online for starter discard recipes, you’ll find recipes for pancakes, cakes, and other treats, these can be really good to make while you’re building up your starter. I even came up with a soda bread recipe using sourdough discard, but you’ll have to wait for my upcoming sourdough book to see that one!
I used wild yeast, and let the dough rise over the course of two days and kneaded and folded it over the course of those two days every few hours since it wasn’t rising well enough. Thanks for the reference, from my research I added too much water throughout the whole process and needed to let it be more solid. Thanks you very much!
Hashigishi - Stilgar.
“What labels me negates me” - Sören Kiergaard
Curiosity and a willingness to change, those are the only keys needed
Anti-lobbyist until my last breath
Liberty is natural
Kate Downham wrote:Starters improve over time, so don’t be dismayed if your starter doesn’t make great bread to begin with. The best breads will come when you’ve been feeding your starter every day for 2+ weeks.
Have you tried sourdough pancakes? If you do a search online for starter discard recipes, you’ll find recipes for pancakes, cakes, and other treats, these can be really good to make while you’re building up your starter. I even came up with a soda bread recipe using sourdough discard, but you’ll have to wait for my upcoming sourdough book to see that one!
Can I put it in the fridge and stop feeding it for a while if I am on vacation and take it out and keep feeding it? Does that work?
Hashigishi - Stilgar.
“What labels me negates me” - Sören Kiergaard
Curiosity and a willingness to change, those are the only keys needed
Anti-lobbyist until my last breath
Liberty is natural
Nathan Klark wrote:I tried making sourdough do trite first time, not really in to cooking or baking but when I saw the health benefits I had to try it. I think I put too much water and not enough flour throughout the process, but the starter was definitely suuuuper alive. Anyway, here’s the picture. It was super dense, but also su[er yummy, so I only got to take a picture after eating more than half of it. You’ll see how dense it is, and how unlike a Swiss cheese it is. Super tasty with elderflower jam though (self made).
I have 10X the starter left over, don’t worry, I’ll make some great sourdough before the semester starts again!
You'll get it how you want it. Looks like maybe you started out all whole wheat. Not the easiest place to start but go for the gold!
I'm like that too. Make sure to try different flours. Preferably any local ones you can.
It's always tasty no matter the results. That and how long it lasts are my favorite parts for sure.
Keep us posted!
Yea, you are right. For the starter I used all whole wheat and when I made the actual bulk fermentation however I used mostly (only) normal white flour. I was told whole wheat makes the fermentation far quicker and more explosive, which it did, but that normal white flour makes the dough easier to rise in the oven and so on…. So next time I probably just need to get the flour to water ratio better
Hashigishi - Stilgar.
“What labels me negates me” - Sören Kiergaard
Curiosity and a willingness to change, those are the only keys needed
Anti-lobbyist until my last breath
Liberty is natural
Nathan Klark wrote:Can I put it in the fridge and stop feeding it for a while if I am on vacation and take it out and keep feeding it? Does that work?
You can put it in the fridge to store it, but that won't count towards 14+ days of feeding, so for example, if you fed it 5 days, put it in the fridge for 7 days, you'd then need to feed it for another 9 days in total to get it to 14+ days of feeding. Every starter is different though, so you may find that yours bakes good bread after more feeding or less feeding than that.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first—Joel Salatin
You’ll get it, it just takes practice and learning. Sounds like you got the learning part figured out, keep in mind it is a wild animal, not nearly as predictable as sterile white flour and packaged yeast, the weather and strain of yeast you catch will effect your results from batch to batch. Enjoy the journey.
"You must be the change you want to see in the world." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
"Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." --Francis of Assisi.
"Family farms work when the whole family works the farm." -- Adam Klaus
It took 5 attempts for me to get it right. And even now I don't deviate from the recipe out of fear it won't turn out. None of the recipes worked for me, you have to tweak it based on your oven, elevation, cookware, etc.. It's all going to make subtle differences. There are numerous websites explaining and diagnosing the issue, i.e. underproofed, overproofed, not sour enough, too sour.
I made croutons and breadcrumbs with the bad loaves.
Also, I never got my own starter started. The one time I did, it died during a hurricane. I tried with dried starter from other people. Finally, I got some fresh starter from a guy at a farmer's market and converted the starter to my flour. My starter is now half rye and half bread flour - don't want to buy additional types of flour. The bread is all bread flour.
That indeed is very useful. So it can be cooled indefinitely as long as the lid is mostly airtight and at room temp a true or below, just takes longer to wake
Hashigishi - Stilgar.
“What labels me negates me” - Sören Kiergaard
Curiosity and a willingness to change, those are the only keys needed
Anti-lobbyist until my last breath
Liberty is natural
I'm also having fun with sourdough at the moment! My loafs aren't turning out too well - I'm just struggling to get my oven hot enough - I have a wood fired stove and we think there is an awkward flueway blocked so the oven never gets really hot enough for a loaf.
loaf in tin before rising
The sourdough starter discard recipes are great though! pancakes to dream of! and so easy to make a topping for a fruit pudding/pie.
apple pie with sourdough batter topping
I've successfully put my starter in the fridge a couple of times for a few days and it seems to soon revive. I gather they used dry it on sticks and use a stick to make a new batch of bread.
Nancy Reading wrote:I'm also having fun with sourdough at the moment! My loafs aren't turning out too well - I'm just struggling to get my oven hot enough - I have a wood fired stove and we think there is an awkward flueway blocked so the oven never gets really hot enough for a loaf.
loaf in tin before rising
The sourdough starter discard recipes are great though! pancakes to dream of! and so easy to make a topping for a fruit pudding/pie.
apple pie with sourdough batter topping
I've successfully put my starter in the fridge a couple of times for a few days and it seems to soon revive. I gather they used dry it on sticks and use a stick to make a new batch of bread.
I found it really hard to get good baking temperatures when our first stove was incorrectly installed. Combustion stoves with small fireboxes like my old Rayburn (which was designed for coal) work best with a nice straight unblocked flue.
The moisture content of wood makes a difference when it comes to baking temperatures too. We’ve started being more strict about putting wood on pallets to keep it off the damp ground (we also cover it with a tarp when it rains), and I’ve noticed that the oven is quicker to heat up and gets to higher temperatures since we’ve taken more care with this.
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